We’re pleased to inform you that ITechLaw is organising the 15th ITechLaw 2019 International India Conference from January 30, 2019 to February 1, 2019 at the JW Marriott in Bangalore. For further details, please read the announcement below: 15th ITechLaw 2018 International India Conference (January 30 – February 1, 2019, Bangalore) The 15th ITechLaw 2018 International India Conference organised by ITechLaw is coming again to Bangalore. The conference will be held from January 30 to February 1, 2019 at the JW Marriott, Bangalore. The conference begins with a special…

Topical Highlight Prof. Basheer wrote a post on the Monsanto decision that was recently passed by the Supreme Court. In his post, he highlights the magnitude of the litigation that has taken place and the different areas of law that must be considered. He also notes that much is yet to come from the dispute since the Delhi High Court will now conduct a trial over the patentability of the technology, which he suspects will also be a decision that…

The Indian Performing Right Society (IPRS) has been readmitted to International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (Cisac) as an associate member, after spending two years in exile. The readmission comes after a string of reforms carried out within IPRS, that that bring it in compliance with Cisac rules and best practices. Cisac is a non-governmental, not-for-profit organisation, and is the world’s leading network of authors’ societies, with 239 members in 122 countries. It represents more than four million…

In an order passed a few days ago, the Delhi High Court issued an injunction against Zee Media from using Rajat Sharma’s name in all its print and electronic advertisements. It further directed the defendants to remove all hoardings across the country which mention Mr. Sharma’s name. Here’s a brief background of the case at hand. For promoting its new channel, Zee Hindustan, the defendants had published the following advertisement on January 9, 2019 in the front page of the HIndustan Times: In the guise…

We’re pleased to bring to you an insightful guest post by Roshan John, examining the amendments proposed by the recently published Draft Patent (Amendment) Rules, 2018 in light of the India’s recent agreement with Japan on having a patent prosecution highway program. Roshan works as a Trade and IP analyst for Access Campaign of Médecins Sans Frontières. DIPP’s Proposed Patent Rules Amendment to Legitimize India-Japan Patent Prosecution Highway Roshan John The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) had recently…

Monsanto’s fight against Nuziveedu and other seed companies over BT Cotton (that Prashant recently blogged about) will rate as one of the toughest patent battles ever. Not just patents, but involving a whole host of other laws including: i) Contract law (given that licensing contracts between Monsanto and some of the seed companies such as Nuziveedu were terminated) ii) Constitutional law (Monsanto’s challenge to cotton price control orders issued by govt) iii) Arbitration law (given that there are countless arbitration…

Thematic Highlight We had a guest post on the issue of whether Braille, as a language, is capable of translation, reproduction or adaptation. The author first analyses the nature of Braille and comes to the conclusion that it’s a universal code for all languages and hence, can only be transliterated and not translated. She then analyses whether the conversion of a literary work to Braille would constitute adaptation or reproduction under the Act. She also goes on to analyse whether the…

Some of you may be wondering as to what happened to the patent working PIL filed in 2015. As noted in the last post, the Delhi High Court had disposed of the petition in April last year, directing the Government to complete all steps towards effectuating necessary amendments to optimise the patent working provisions; and all to be completed within strict timelines. It also asked the Government to place a report before it upon completion of this exercise. As per its…

We’re pleased to bring to you a guest post by Siddharth Sonkar. Siddharth is a 4th year student at NUJS, Kolkata. Does Sui Generis Protection of Unoriginal Databases Reconcile Access and Incentive to Actualise Public Good? Siddharth Sonkar Recently, theft of databases, especially in the Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) sector in India has reportedly become endemic, ushering the database industry towards a market failure. Database industry in India loosely comprises companies which generate databases relating to banking and finance stock markets,…

We are pleased to announce that the Indian Journal of Law and Technology Blog is calling for articles from students and academics interested in the field of law and technology. For further details, please see the call for submissions below: Call for Submissions to the Indian Journal of Law and Technology Blog About IJLT The Indian Journal of Law and Technology (IJLT) is a student-edited, peer-reviewed, completely open access law journal published annually by the National Law School of India…

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Leading IP Academics Fired

This protest petition against unfair dismissals of Prof. N. S. Gopalakrishnan, Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) Chair Professor at Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT) and Prof. Yogesh Pai, MHRD Chair Professor at National Law University at Jodhpur, is now closed.

It was posted on SpicyIP blog on August 28, 2013 by Prof. Shamnad Basheer. Link to petition here: http://spicyipindia.blogspot.in/2013/08/leading-ip-academics-fired-protest.html